Becky’s head leaned down the three-person line. She called out to Mike, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I love you Mike. It’s going to be okay.”
Eda tried to duck her head out of the way. She wanted to step aside, to allow the lovers to get closer, but there was no room to move. Even at the end, the Sinners were denied their dignity.
“B-B-Becky,” Mike said.
Number 42 cut the rope around Mike’s wrists.
Sam.
Sam.
Sam. Sam. Sam.
“Find my sister,” Mike cried out. His eyes strained down the line, pleading with Becky. “Please. Get out of here, go to Boston and find Pam. Tell her I…”
“Mayor Tom Johnson,” Baldilocks called out. “You are the second Sinner. Go down into the hole and confess to Uncle Sam.”
“I love you!” Mike said.
Becky screamed, a wild-high pitched protest. “No!”
The sound of Mike’s throat being sliced open was so close that it sounded like it was happening inside Eda’s head. Number 42 stepped back, blood dripping off the blade. Mike doubled over, staggered backwards like a drunk and then fell into the hole. It happened so fast that Number 42 didn’t even get the chance to perform the coup de grâce – to push him in. At least Mike took that away from her at the end.
The last thing Eda heard was a watery, gurgling noise. Mike sounded like he was trying to scream underwater.
Then he was gone.
Becky screamed over and over again.
Eda charged with wrists bound at the dog heads blocking her path. She didn’t get far before they pushed her back. Becky tried to run too and Eda didn’t know if it was rage, survival instinct or whether the woman was desperately trying to escape so she could fulfill Mike’s dying but impossible request of her. The Children restrained Becky too, blocking all routes of escape. She hopped about wildly. One of the guards locked an arm around Becky’s waist, stopping her from tumbling backwards into the crater prematurely.
“Mike!”
“We’re now halfway through the ceremony,” Baldilocks said. His eyes were burning through the slits in the mask. “Only the President of the United States and the Bank Manager remain. And then mercifully, it will be over.”
Baldilocks glared at Eda, but his words addressed the crowd behind him.
“Number 47,” he said. “The third of the Seekers to deliver.”
Eda’s body lapsed into a state of icy, rigid terror. She was about to die and for a few seconds, couldn’t move a muscle. Couldn’t breathe. She doubled over, burying her face in her hands, squeezing until the tendons in her arms felt like rope. Her guts churned like a typhoon.
She wanted to puke…was going to puke.
Then it passed. Eda straightened up, raising her chin in the air.
Another dog head took the dagger. The masked figure walked up to Eda, minus the detached swagger of the others. The blade in his hand was still dripping fresh blood. It was the darkest, reddest blood Eda had ever seen.
A familiar set of eyes peered out from behind the animal mask.
“David,” Eda said. “So that’s how it works, huh? You get to make the kill on the big day.”
The dog head said nothing.
“Not as easy as it looks,” Eda said. “Is it?”
He came closer and cut the binding on her wrists.
“Don’t have the guts to look me in the eye David?” Eda said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She thrust her face towards the dog snout and David flinched like a shell-shocked man hearing gunfire in the distance. His eyes blinked furiously. She felt both rage and fear seeping out of his skin.
“After what I did for you in New York?” Eda said. “And you can’t even look at me?”
“President of the United States,” Baldilocks said.
Sam.
Sam.
Sam. Sam. Sam.
“Fucking coward,” Eda hissed. “I can’t believe it. I’m going to die at the hands of a fucking wimp from New Jersey.”
When Baldilocks spoke again, Number 47 held up a hand.
“One moment,” he said.
Number 47 pulled the dog mask over his head. That familiar, boyish face had never looked so old.
“Well well well,” Eda said. “Look who decided to show up.”
“You want to look in my eyes?” he said. “That’s what you want? Okay then. You’re right – I owe you one after New York. If that’s what you want then I’ll give it to you. It’s not going to make it any harder for me to do this Eda. You’re still going to die.”
David glanced over his shoulder at Baldilocks. There was a curt nod, a signal for the old man to continue.
“President of the United States,” Baldilocks said.
David walked forward. He put the dagger to Eda’s throat and she couldn’t help but gasp at its jagged bite. Hot blood smeared on her skin, dead men’s leftovers. She couldn’t believe David was going to kill her like this. It didn’t matter that she’d saved his life in New York. He had to do it.
Baldilocks waited a moment before continuing.
“Go down into the…”
A sudden noise cut the old man off in mid-sentence. It sounded like the air being sucked out of a beach ball at lighting speed. At first, Eda thought it was her dying shriek but putting a hand to her throat she realized she wasn’t bleeding.
David was staring at her. Through her. He took a couple of drunken steps backwards.
His shoulder jerked up and down, a violent spasm beyond his control. His face sagged horribly. With a groan, he reached a hand towards his head and it crashed clumsily off the back of his neck. He didn’t give up there. His fingers probed further, reaching past the shoulder; it was like he was looking for something that he couldn’t find. Something on his body.
Slowly, he turned around to look at Baldilocks.
That’s when Eda saw it.
There was an arrow in David’s back.
8
The Children pulled off their dog masks in a hurry. Frantic fingers clawed at straps and when the masks were removed, Eda saw a blurry wall of shocked faces looking at David. Their wide eyes twitched in disbelief. It was as if their minds couldn’t digest the sight of an arrow embedded in the young Seeker’s back.
All of a sudden, Eda heard a lone scream. Frightened murmurings. Mass confusion burst forth around the bombsite like water through a paper dam.
Eda spun around and saw the Children standing at the edge of the crater. They were looking over in Eda’s direction, too far away to get a grip of what was happening. Did they even know they were under attack? Eda’s question was answered when the Children started jumping around in manic half-circles of terror.
She strained her eyes. The gleam of distant swords winked back at her.
“What the hell?” Eda said. “What are they…?”
The Children were attacking one another.
Loud footsteps crashed towards Eda. Coming from behind.
Eda spun back to the front and saw a pale-faced David staggering towards her. A wretched groan spilled out of the man. His right arm was folded over at an impossible angle, hanging above his shoulder like he was still trying to reach the arrow in his back. To get it out, like somehow that would stop the pain. Now the arm just hung there, useless and frozen.
He looked like a ghost already.
“Help me,” he said.
Eda watched him drop to his knees in a crumpled heap. Sweat gushed off his yellowing forehead. With a look of disdain, Eda turned back to the crowd of dog heads gathered around the crater in the distance. They were attacking one another. Eda’s face creased up in confusion. It was like there was madness in the air, turning brother against brother, sister against sister. The screams were frequent; they were high-pitched and cut like a knife.
“What’s going on?” Eda said.
Was there a rogue faction at work within the Children? A pack of rebels attacking their own kind?
“Eda!”
<
br /> It was Becky’s voice.
Eda battled through a foggy trance and came back to the present moment. She looked to her right and saw Becky’s panicked eyes staring back at her. Becky held up her wrists and Eda saw that she was still bound with rope.
She moved towards Becky but as she did so, David – who was back on his feet – almost crashed into her. He was a runaway boulder with arms and legs. Just inches away from Eda, from the edge. Eda saw the dazed look in his eyes and his arms reached for her still, like she was his only chance of staying afloat in deep water.
Eda caught a glimpse of the sacrificial dagger lying on the ground where David had dropped it. She dodged his wild advances, knelt down and picked it up.
“Help me,” David whispered. “Please Eda…I’m…”
Eda tucked the dagger neatly into her belt. Then she smiled, reached out and placed her hands on David’s shoulders, helping to keep him upright. His eyes lit up and a faint smile formed on his bluish lips.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” David said. “Eda, please listen to me. I’m…”
Before he could finish, Eda spun David around so that his back was facing the crater. There was no strength left in the man – it was like dancing with a child’s doll as far as Eda was concerned.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
It only took the slightest bit of effort for Eda to push him backwards. David’s eyes ballooned with terror as he tumbled over the lip of the crater.
He rolled down the side at tremendous speed, barreling his way over a vast empire of hard, occasionally jagged rock. Pieces of David flew up in the air, like water spurting from a geyser. It was the slow explosion of a man. At the bottom, the bones and bloody flesh of his predecessors awaited him.
Eda took a step back from the crater’s edge. As she did, she dragged Becky alongside her and used the dagger to saw off the rope around the other woman’s wrists. Becky sighed with relief and shook her arms free. Now she looked over the hole, taking in the strange sight of the Children fighting amongst themselves. She looked at Eda and shook her head. Eda shrugged and glanced over at the action yet again.
She stopped dead.
“Oh shit,” Eda said.
Her blood ran cold. Eda walked to the edge of the crater, as far as she could go and then she stopped. All the chaos fell silent in her mind. The world blurred at the edges as her eyes locked onto a weapon, currently being wielded with savage intent by one of the rebels. Even from a distance, Eda could see that it wasn’t a short sword like the ones she’d seen the Children carrying back in camp.
It was a katana sword. A samurai sword.
She looked back and forth, panic leaking like blood through an arterial wound. The rebel faces became instantly recognizable. The truth hit hard. It wasn’t the Children attacking other Children.
“It can’t be,” Eda said.
“What are you talking about?” Becky asked. Her voice was a distant murmur, something lost in the fog of confusion swirling around in Eda’s head.
Eda staggered back from the edge, unable to trust her sense of balance.
She was looking over at the towering figure of Lex – the female giant who stood head and shoulders above almost everyone else. Lex moved like a ballet dancer, spinning gracefully, moving in and out of range while hacking mercilessly at as many Children as her sword could reach. She slashed once, twice then kicked her helpless victims down into the hole.
All the while, she was getting closer to Eda.
Their eyes met from afar. Lex’s face was an angry tapestry of cuts and bruises – a reminder of the damage she’d accumulated in New York courtesy of Frankie Boy. The expression on the chief warrior’s face was even angrier than her wounds.
Lex strode forward with hate in her eyes. A huge man in a dog mask leapt in front of her wielding a short sword. Lex greeted the swordsman with a kick in the chest and that was enough to send him down to Uncle Sam, dog mask still attached to his head.
Eda’s hands were clamped to the top of her head. Her mouth hung open. “Why?” she said. “I left. They let me go for God’s sake!”
Becky grabbed Eda by the arm.
“We need to get out of here,” she said. “You and me. Now!”
Eda was too stunned to respond. In the distance, Lex charged forward, even as she continued to cut down the swathe of Children who tried to fight back valiantly. They probably thought she was going for Baldilocks. Eda knew better.
There were about twenty of the New York warriors in total. It wasn’t much but Eda knew firsthand the damage that just a handful of those women were capable of.
Becky pulled Eda’s arm again and this time Eda relented. They turned and ran towards the steep hill that led towards the road. As they raced forward, Eda removed the small sacrificial dagger from her belt, where it was at risk of cutting her, and put it into the inside pocket of her suit jacket.
Shrill screams pierced the air.
Eda and Becky charged up the hill. Eda’s legs were still paralyzed with shock, not quite functioning at full speed, but Becky didn’t stop dragging her in a bid to make haste.
“C’mon!” Becky yelled. “Keep going Eda.”
Eda staggered forward like an ambitious toddler who hadn’t quite mastered the art of walking, let alone running. Finally, her legs warmed up to the task. Near the top of the hill, she turned around and caught a glimpse of Baldilocks on the outskirts of the crater. He was bouncing on his feet like a madman. Yelling orders. When he saw Eda and Becky making a run for it, still dressed in their sacrificial suits, he pointed uphill and screamed like a man whose property was being stolen in front of his eyes.
His voice soared above the sound of clashing steel. “They belong to Uncle Sam! Bring them back. Bring them back!”
“To the boats,” Becky said. She pointed across the road to the row of short firs that led to the river. With any luck, five canoes would be waiting beside the water.
Eda slammed her arm against the other woman’s chest.
“Hang on a minute,” she said.
“What?” Becky said, looking at Eda like she was crazy. “Wait for what? We need to go.”
“That first arrow,” Eda said. “It went into David’s back. It must have come from the trees over there. What if the archers are still hiding in there and we’re running straight towards them?”
Becky tapped Eda on the shoulder. “You mean those archers?” she said.
She pointed towards a huddle of three warriors standing about thirty feet away from the crater, crouching and firing arrows into the crowd of Children. They were advancing towards Lex and the others, moving away from the trees.
“They spilled out after the first shot,” Becky said. “I think the coast is clear.”
“But there might be more,” Eda said, looking warily at the foreboding wall of firs.
“We’re going to have to take that chance,” Becky said. “Come to think of it, how do we know these girls aren’t on our side? They just saved our lives didn’t they?”
“Trust me,” Eda said, shaking her head. “They’re not on our side.”
Becky tilted her head.
“You know them?” she asked.
Eda nodded. “This isn’t the right time to talk about it.”
Eda and Becky tackled the steep incline and crossed the winding road. They jumped the metal barrier and pushed through the fir trees, coming out by the genteel ghost houses on Riverside Drive. From there, they pumped their arms and legs, running eagerly to the river like two aquatic creatures floundering on dry land.
They trampled through the mini-forest at the edge of the riverbank.
“Shit!” Becky yelled, looking towards the water.
The canoes were drifting away. They were moving in an easterly direction at a very slow pace with the nearest one about ten to fifteen feet from the bank. Three paddles floated gently on the calm surface of the Passaic.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Becky said, pun
ching at the air. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming after them yet.
“It was the warriors, “ Eda said. “They must have ambushed the Children’s camp after we were gone. I guess they traveled down on the last boatload, then probably killed whoever brought them here and didn’t secure the boats.”
Somebody screamed in the background.
“Jesus,” Becky said. “We need to get out of here.”
She looked at Eda with a hopeful expression.
“Can you swim?”
Eda bit her lip. “I swam once when I was young,” she said, “In a river much smaller than this. Actually I wouldn’t really call it swimming.”
Becky raised an eyebrow. “What would you call it?”
“Drowning.”
Becky managed a weak laugh. She pointed to the nearest canoe.
“We just need to reach that one okay?” she said. “You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that a lot of people are going to be coming after us Eda. If we can’t get to one of those canoes, we’re screwed.”
“Yeah,” Eda said in a flat voice. “I know.”
A pause.
“You can do this,” Becky said.
Eda stared at the dirty brown water.
“Sure.”
With that said, Becky leaned forward over the riverbank. She took several deep breaths and then dove headfirst into the Passaic River. There was a light splashing noise – it sounded like a bird dive-bombing the water. A few seconds passed. Eda began to panic, to suspect that something had grabbed Becky under there and pulled her down into the dark depths.
A head popped up out of the water. Becky twisted into position, then her arms cut through the surface as she swam towards the nearest canoe.
She stopped halfway and turned back towards land.
“C’mon!” she called out to Eda. “It’s alright.”
Eda glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming yet. Warriors, Children – they would show up sooner or later on the riverbank. Nothing yet. Then she turned back to the water, heart racing, and with sheer force of will, blocked out all memories of her near drowning incident as a child. The panic. Being pulled down into the darkness. The certainty of death, it never happened.
After the End Trilogy Box Set Page 24
